This week, I finally summoned up the courage to quit Facebook. In my mind, there has been a swell of ill-feeling towards the social networking phenomenon for about a year or so. It was quelled when I quit MySpace in June of last year, but since Facebook reached critical mass in about September, I've become re-frustrated by the essential pointlessness of it all, and increasingly resentful of my dependance upon it.
Social networking sites allow people like me to give themselves the illusion of a broad network of friends. That is to say people in their 20s, very possibly single, and feeling slightly abandoned because many of their friends have either settled down or have moved away.
Getting in touch with old friends, reacquainting with former objects of affection and even noseying on people who I hadn't formally made "friends with" but who's life it became fascinating to monitor - just a bit voyeurish, but not as much as, say, watching Big Brother: Celebrity Highjack.
When I found Facebook, I thought I'd found MySpace without its drawbacks, and happily extolled its virtues to anyone who seemed willing to listen.
However, the aforementioned moment of critical mass came when Facebook moved from the early adopter phase. This meant dealing with long-forgotten schoolfriends, colleagues from work who I barely knew or even just recognised my name and people who I couldn't even recall speaking to but apparently just wanted to be associated with me. My "friend count" swelled from a modest 30 to about 70 or so withing the space of a couple of weeks, mainly because everyone seemed to be in competition to get the highest number of "friends".
All of a sudden, my news-feed was full of irrelevant information about people who I didn't care about, while I tried to deal with the ridiculous amount of application requests that promised such illumnating journeys into my own pysche to reveal what my stripper name would be, what kind of kisser I was etc.
The most insidious of the 'book anomalies were the desperate attempts to create massive groups with millions or so members. I must admit to attempting this myself, with the worthy intent of getting Angus Deayton reinstated as the presenter of Have I Got News For You. By far the worse and most blatant attempt at self promotion came from some needy fool who created a group called "Six Degrees of Separation - the experiment."
When I last checked this group, it was up to something like three and a half million members. I thought about posting on the forum, questioning the creator's methods, asking how the experiment would be measured, and accusing them of running what was essentially a vanity project. Unfortunately, I didn't think my voice would be heard amongst all the other people who'd started off threads like "does god exist" and "say one thing about the person above you".
My first act was to decline the few friend-whoring dregs who tried to add me, swiftly followed by a phased deletion of some of the tertiary and then secondary friends. None of these people made any comment about me deleting them. Even people who I worked with. I then trimmed down my profile information (which had in all honesty perhaps been a little too long) to a brusque description of my current activities and a quote from Apocalypse Now.
To quote Hunter S. Thompson, the decision to flee came suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe I had planned it all along, subconsciously waiting for the right moment. Whatever, after another round of snooping on the few remaining friends that remained, I found myself going through the deactivation process like some kind of base motor-reflex, with no real road-to-damascus moment inpriring the act. That was a week ago.
When I attempted to leave MySpace 18 months ago, I was back on within a few days, worried that I was missing out on wild flirting with a lonely, adventure-seeking 24 year old single girl from South Staffordshire. Things seem different now. I think the fad, like the wider "Web 2.0" revolution will die out - I'm not the only one with these sentiments, and there's only so many times we'll keep moving out west to new services before we realise they're all exploiting the early adopters who bring in the mainstream who in turn ruin it by being the brain-dead miasma we've come to expect them to be.
Yuwie, anyone?
Monday 28 January 2008
Saturday 19 January 2008
Coup de Grace
I've been thinking about death a bit recently. Now I'm at the wrong end of my twenties, I've become aware that I'm not really getting younger. I get a bit of backache every now and then, I seem unable to get rid of the office lard I put on about 5 years ago, I can't understand instruction manuals to DVD players as well as I used to, and modern pop music makes me say "are the kids really listening to this shite?"
Some thought has gone in over the years about how I want to die. Ask most people, and they will say they want to die old and in their sleep, or at the very worst under a deep sedative or coma. Bollocks to that. I've said for a few years now that when my time is up, I want to stare death in the face and be fully aware that my life is over and that I'm passing into the next realm. Indeed, to quote Lieutenant Frank Drebin from Naked Gun: "...a parachute not opening, that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine, having your neck split open by a Laplander, that's the way I want to go." Living in the suburbs and working white-collar, it's unlikely that I'll meet such a fate, but the senseless murder of Garry Newlove, the trial of which was covered in the news this week has given me a new preferred method of dispatch. I want to die an utterly pointless and meaningless death.
For those not familiar with the crime (or for when this recedes from public memory), Newlove was kicked to death by a gang of drunken teenagers. Because he went out to investigate the sound of breaking glass. He'd had run-ins with the gang before, going outside to tell them to shut up or clear off or whatever, but this time they decided to properly go for it, bring him down and "kick his head like a football" all while his daughter looked on from the house. By all accounts, he was a good man, who worked hard and loved his family. Perhaps that's the most horrifying thing about it - he was just an ordinary bloke placed in the wrong set of circumstances.
I like to think I can empathise with with people, put myself in other people's shoes and perhaps get a different perspective on a situation. When I used to work on a service line in a call centre, empathy was pretty much a survival skill - how else would you be able to bring yourself to resolve a direct debit problem for a ranting 'asprirational' Kent based city type unless you could take into account the fact that he probably had massive debt, was tired from his 3 hour long commute and was possibly suffering from mild cocaine psychosis?
I was a fairly studious (read geeky) teenager, but I did time hanging around on the streets. We weren't exactly up to no good, but even in the mid-90s, teenage binge drinking was reasonably commonplace. Sending the person with the most hormones into the off-licence with a carefully planned list of demands, we would excitedly await their return, then go off to some field where we'd pitched a tent and get drunk, finally indluging in some hedgehopping. I'd all but grown out of it by the time I was 15, realising that my time was better spent working part time, doing my coursework and looking to the future. There was no malice when we were doing this. Sure it was illegal and somewhat antisocial, but I don't think people felt threatened by us, and I'm certain we never caused trouble or started any fights. What I'm wondering is, what happened in the 12 or so years between then and now? We were rebellious, sure, and some people did go off the rails - but even the top 90% or so respected the basic tenets of society.
Back to the rant. The only way I think I could begin to understand them is if I was randomly targeted by a gang of them and set about. I've put a lot of thought into it. I'd like the lead antagonist to be dressed in a camoflaged hoodie, with that awful greasy spiked down hair they have, while his sychophantic followers looked on and gave the odd kick as I lay bleeding on the floor. For added effect, a couple of teen-slappers could look on, drinking White Lightning and adjusting their Croydon facelifts, no doubt impressed with the peacock-like performance of my assailants.
Playing the scene in my mind helps me to get a handle on it. I've led a good life - I've got a good education, worked hard since leaving university and have been nothing but a joy to my friends and family (okay, stay with me). I've achieved everything I wanted to in life, and now I'd be helping someone to achieve their goals. Who's to say that what's important to a thick as pigshit teen-chav is less valid than what I want from life?
Reintroduce National Service.
Some thought has gone in over the years about how I want to die. Ask most people, and they will say they want to die old and in their sleep, or at the very worst under a deep sedative or coma. Bollocks to that. I've said for a few years now that when my time is up, I want to stare death in the face and be fully aware that my life is over and that I'm passing into the next realm. Indeed, to quote Lieutenant Frank Drebin from Naked Gun: "...a parachute not opening, that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine, having your neck split open by a Laplander, that's the way I want to go." Living in the suburbs and working white-collar, it's unlikely that I'll meet such a fate, but the senseless murder of Garry Newlove, the trial of which was covered in the news this week has given me a new preferred method of dispatch. I want to die an utterly pointless and meaningless death.
For those not familiar with the crime (or for when this recedes from public memory), Newlove was kicked to death by a gang of drunken teenagers. Because he went out to investigate the sound of breaking glass. He'd had run-ins with the gang before, going outside to tell them to shut up or clear off or whatever, but this time they decided to properly go for it, bring him down and "kick his head like a football" all while his daughter looked on from the house. By all accounts, he was a good man, who worked hard and loved his family. Perhaps that's the most horrifying thing about it - he was just an ordinary bloke placed in the wrong set of circumstances.
I like to think I can empathise with with people, put myself in other people's shoes and perhaps get a different perspective on a situation. When I used to work on a service line in a call centre, empathy was pretty much a survival skill - how else would you be able to bring yourself to resolve a direct debit problem for a ranting 'asprirational' Kent based city type unless you could take into account the fact that he probably had massive debt, was tired from his 3 hour long commute and was possibly suffering from mild cocaine psychosis?
I was a fairly studious (read geeky) teenager, but I did time hanging around on the streets. We weren't exactly up to no good, but even in the mid-90s, teenage binge drinking was reasonably commonplace. Sending the person with the most hormones into the off-licence with a carefully planned list of demands, we would excitedly await their return, then go off to some field where we'd pitched a tent and get drunk, finally indluging in some hedgehopping. I'd all but grown out of it by the time I was 15, realising that my time was better spent working part time, doing my coursework and looking to the future. There was no malice when we were doing this. Sure it was illegal and somewhat antisocial, but I don't think people felt threatened by us, and I'm certain we never caused trouble or started any fights. What I'm wondering is, what happened in the 12 or so years between then and now? We were rebellious, sure, and some people did go off the rails - but even the top 90% or so respected the basic tenets of society.
Back to the rant. The only way I think I could begin to understand them is if I was randomly targeted by a gang of them and set about. I've put a lot of thought into it. I'd like the lead antagonist to be dressed in a camoflaged hoodie, with that awful greasy spiked down hair they have, while his sychophantic followers looked on and gave the odd kick as I lay bleeding on the floor. For added effect, a couple of teen-slappers could look on, drinking White Lightning and adjusting their Croydon facelifts, no doubt impressed with the peacock-like performance of my assailants.
Playing the scene in my mind helps me to get a handle on it. I've led a good life - I've got a good education, worked hard since leaving university and have been nothing but a joy to my friends and family (okay, stay with me). I've achieved everything I wanted to in life, and now I'd be helping someone to achieve their goals. Who's to say that what's important to a thick as pigshit teen-chav is less valid than what I want from life?
Reintroduce National Service.
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